The Marriage of….

MARRIAGE OF MR JOHN MOLONY AND MISS KENNY

The marriage of J Molony and Miss Kenny took place on 30th January when the lonely surroundings of Coolmeen were enlivened by a gay wedding party. The ceremony was performed by Rev D Courtney, PP and Mr Martin Moloney cousin of the bridegroom was best man. The bride, youngest daughter of the late Daniel Kenny Coolmeen, was given away by her brother and looked charming in a biscuit coloured dress trimmed with chiffon and roses.

Miss Roche, Ennis, and Miss Mary Reidy, Boloughera were bridesmaids and were tastefully dressed in fawn colour cloth with hats to match. The wedding party were met at Kildysart by a number of young men bearing torch lights who headed the procession through the village. The guests were entertained at the home of Mr Moloney (Martin).

Unusual wording for this day and age?

The above report appeared in the Clare Journal on Monday 12th February 1900. The wedding took place one hundred and fourteen (114) years ago today.

Coolmeen is a townland in County Clare, Ireland. It is located on the north bank of the Shannon Estuary 7 kms (3.5 Irish miles) to the south west of Kildysart.

Modern road sign at the cross roads

Why my interest?

1. Mr John Molony and his bride with no first name were my paternal grandparents!* She did actually have a first name: Margaret. She was the daughter of Daniel Kenny and Bridget Kelly. The Kenny’s were part of the reason for my auburn hair!

2. The different spellings of the name Molony/Moloney.
They were correct. John Molony & Martin Moloney were in fact double cousins, each related through both of their parents.** Years later my father served his time as a draper’s assistant to Martin Moloney & Sons, Textile Specialists.

3. The description of the outfits worn by the bride and bridesmaids.

Can you imagine any bridesmaid or flower girl today, being described as ‘tastefully dressed in fawn colour CLOTH’! Jen, Triona and Alice, I am looking at you three in particular! 😆

The giddy goose of my inner crafting eye is visualising the Misses Roche & Reidy, wrapped mummy fashion from a large bail of fawn cloth as sold by Martin Moloney & Sons! Do you think they got a discount. 😉

Bale of cloth

Let me take you back before this date in 1900……

It was in March 1878 that John was appointed Postmaster of Kildysart.

Besides running the Post office, John became:

• Registrar of Births, Marriages and Deaths
• Travel Agent for all the Trans Atlantic shipping lines
• Insurance Agent,
• The Inspector of Gunpowder and Gun Licenses.
• An Import/Export Agent
• He opened a grocery/bar, so stamps and postal orders were sold at one counter and groceries & liquor at the one opposite.

My grandfather was the man who anyone wishing to emigrate to America or England, went to for his or her Identification Papers.

Mind you, “The Licensing Act of 1872 forbade anyone to be drunk while in charge of a cow or steam engine on a public highway”. I wonder how that effected business on a Fair Day?

1907 Molony Family at Post office

John & Margaret Molony with the first five of their eleven children, outside the Post Office in 1907. The babe in arms dressed like a doll, was in fact John. Sure ’tis no wonder he ran off to America in 1925! No. I don’t think he was wearing dresses when he went! 😉

John later extended his portfolio, as we say today, by buying a small farm – he had a large family to feed and rear, and the boys took their turn at bringing home the cows for milking and taking them back to the fields before and after school each day.

My grandmother worked in the shop as well as keeping hens, geese & a goat. I think a couple of pigs were under her charge too!

In the early 1900s there were many businesses and trades in Kildysart: saddlers, shoemakers, nailmakers, dressmakers, milliners, blacksmiths, tailors and millers. Alas, most of these no longer exist.

Moving forward to 1942/3 the following description of the Kildysert area is interesting.

Considered a quiet village in today’s world, Kildysart has minimarkets, hardware shops, a bank, pharmacist, clinic, veterinary clinic, credit union, garage, RC church, Community Centre, Quay Marina and seven pubs. Alas no mention of the Post Office.

The post office is now McMahon’s Chemist Shop, a name mentioned in the 1942 link above

The Post Office is now a Chemists shop

*Not alone were they my grandparents, but there were many similarities unknowingly repeated in my life.

**This double spelling surfaced again in the next generation. My father, Dan Molony married my mother – Eileen Moloney, although she was born in Dublin, her paternal Moloney ancestors came from Murroe in County Limerick, across the mouth of the River Shannon from Kildysart County Clare.
The double cousins have come into play for some of my nieces and nephews, since two of my brothers married two sisters.

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Babies

Ward Miles Scot was born in July of 2012, fragile and tiny at 26 weeks, three and a half months premature. Over the following 15 months, his dad, photographer and filmmaker Benjamin Scot chronicled his son’s progression from the frailty of 101 days in incubation to full health.

This reminded me of a true story I told a few years ago on my old blog. I am unable to link to it, but I feel it is worth retelling.

Donal’s Cot

Donal weighed in at 2lbs which is just short of a Kilo. He was a very premature baby that his mother carried for less than six months. He had no hair, eyelashes, eyebrows or nails and his skin was porous. He was not expected to survive for very long so the Paediatrician suggested taking him home. His actual words were “He might as well die at home as in here!”

Donal’s homecoming was not as easy as it sounds. His father was sent to find a ‘small’ cot/crib which he did, and it was ready and waiting for the new occupant when he arrived with his ill mother and a nurse. The nurse lived with and became part of the family over the next six months, she was called ‘No-No’ by Donal’s two year-old brother, and the name stuck. To this day if you say the name ‘No-No’ to any of the family they know exactly who you mean.

The Paediatrician soon arrived and set to work.

He gave precise instructions about feeding and cleaning the baby. Donal was not to be washed or bathed in water! His skin was to be cleaned with olive oil and cotton wool.

Food was to be administered by medicine dropper, every hour on the hour!

He rigged up a large light bulb over the cot to provide extra heat for the premature baby and it was to remain on night and day. Being wintertime the temperature was quite low. A fire was lit in the bedroom and kept going day and night.

Each day was a milestone, but there were many, when they fought to keep the baby alive. The Paediatrician was a regular caller and was delighted with any little improvement.

The danger stage eventually passed and Donal was introduced to bottle feeding and began to put on a little weight. The first size baby clothes fitted and slowly the pleasure of washing and bath-time became part of the daily routine. The light was removed from over the cot, but Donal slept in it for a full year.

With Donal’s move to a normal sized baby cot the little one was cleaned, covered and stored in the loft. It was used again with pride for the arrival of each of his four younger siblings.

The little cot appeared for the first time 62 years ago. There were no incubators, or ‘Baby Units’ in hospitals like we have today, the only clothes for premature babies were dolls clothes. Houses had no central heating and washing was all done by hand. Nappies were rinsed, then boiled and when washing was complete they were line dried. The feeding bottles were sterilised by boiling. A baby was hard work back then!

The little cot moved through the family for the arrival of each new baby. Cousins, nieces and nephews all started their lives in it. I spent my early months in it as did Elly. For Donal the most precious moment was the day he placed his own daughter in the little cot. Now once again the cot is stored away and who knows, someday Donal might be blessed with a grandchild to sleep in that very special Cot.

The post above was written on October 29, 2007 – six years ago. Since then Donal has been blessed with two granddaughters the latest one born a couple of months ago, almost a world away in Sydney, Australia. The proud grandparents have just arrived home from a month singing, dancing round the room, and getting to know the latest arrival.

UPDATE: The video link above about Ward Miles Scot, a very premature baby seems to have been removed. Born at twenty six weeks, the tiny baby was almost invisible for tubes, drains, monitors and huge pads over his eyes so large they covered his face.

UPDATE 2: Barbara found a new link to the video and has added it in the comments below. Perhaps it is better there to show how different the treatment is for premature babies these days.

 

Donal had none of that. He clung on to life by a thread for so long, some said he lived for spite! BUT with tender loving care he made it through.

92 ~ Part 2.

Yesterday I told you that ‘92’ was built the year I was born. Granny, almost the age I am now, moved in a couple of months before I was born. She sold her corner shop that she lived over and worked in, since she married my grandfather in Aug 1909. He told her that he wanted to mark the occasion of their wedding with a gift and asked what she would like?

“I always wanted a shop.” she replied.

Her wish was his command and she happily raised her family and worked in the shop even after my grandfather had died in his sleep in 1942. She was tipped off in 1946 that there were to be major changes in the area, with the loss of many of her customers, so she heeded advice and sold her business.

Numbers 90, 92 & 94 Herberton Road

By the time Mammy got to see number 92 from the outside, never mind the inside, Granny had settled into a routine. Mammy didn’t like it at first sight. Perhaps it was after the snow blinding whiteness of the previous months, the fact it was not the ‘home of her childhood’ that she was used to visiting, and the post wartime rationing that gave the place a dark drab look. That feeling stayed with Mammy for the fourteen years that Granny lived there.

We had no problem with visiting as Granny filled the house with laughter and sunshine. We loved the chance to go and stay with her. We went in pairs. I think Granny suggested it that way in case we got lonely.

Our days were fun filled. We were each asked what we would like for dinner, something that never happened at home. Mammy made one dinner for all of us, take it or leave it. No matter what she made it was tasty, we were hungry, so the plates were cleared in double quick time.

We might be in the middle of lunch when Granny would ask “Will we go to the pictures”? That question was always met with a loud chorus of “Yes, Yes, Yes! So once the dishes were cleared, we all trooped off to the pictures/movies for the afternoon.

One day, whichever brother was with me, tripped over his feet and grazed his knee. Granny Florence Nightingale soon had the patient cleaned up, with a ginormous bandage and a sucky sweet – she knew how to do it! 😉 She soon had us giggling and said that if the leg had not healed by tomorrow she could put the patient on the kitchen table and chop his leg off. Well now! We knew all about having legs off!

Our other granddad had a wooden leg. The fact that he died in 1922, when daddy was eleven, had nothing to do with it. We had heard enough stories from daddy and our uncles to know exactly what to do! Sure the boys had spent many an hour walking round the house with a ruler tied to the back of their knee to practice, in case they ever needed a wooden leg.

Granny told us she had a wooden leg, we were at the table at that time, so there was plenty of surreptitious peeping under the table cloth to check it out. Granny must had enjoyed our face making and voiceless conversations across to each other because she let it go on for quite a few minutes.

Eventually she told us it was not ‘her’ leg, it was a spare wooden leg and it was out in the coal hole. Now the coal hole was not actually a hole. It was a shed in the back yard where she kept the coal. Come on now, if I can have a cupboard under the stairs – in a bungalow, then Granny can have a coal hole, that is not a hole! Right?

So once again, when the dishes were cleared, we were marched out to the back yard. Our footsteps shortened and slowed the closer we got to the coal hole door.

Granny disappeared into the darkness.

We heard a bit of clattering and banging and wood scraping along the floor… then…

Granny appeared with the wooden leg of a table in her hand! It had a claw foot. I do not know whether we were relieved or disappointed, but we stood in mouth open silence for a couple of minutes. Granny laughed heartily and in minutes we were laughing along with her. You know to this day, I can still see Granny standing there in the doorway with that dusty old table leg with the claw foot, and hear her laughing.

Bath time was another high point. Granny made paper boats for floating and sailors hats for us to wear. She wore a hat too. I cannot swear, but I think the same pattern of folded paper was used for the boats and the hats.

The two of us were put in the bath together and we played happily while the dirt soaked off, then she washed our hair, our faces, necks and ears, while we washed down as far as possible, up as far as possible, not forgetting to give possible a scrub! All the while we were led in a chorus of sea shanties.

I remember staying with her on a St. Patrick’s day holiday weekend. We were all dressed and ready to go out, when re remembered we had no shamrock to wear on our coats. When we told her, she had a solution. Granny turned to a plant sitting on a shelf of the Hall stand. It was evergreen and shamrock like, though the leaves were at least ten times the real thing. Quick as a blink, she had broken off a bunch, divided it in two and pinned it on our coat lapels! We were wearing more ‘shamrock’ than any American President ever held in that cut glass bowl!

Slowly things began to change. Little things.

Granny would forget where she left her glasses, she might not remember where she left her purse. She would ask us the same question over and over again.

During school holidays we spent more time with Granny. She was minding us, but we were actually there to mind her.

She might send us to the shop twice for the same message. The dinner might be served without the potatoes, because she forgot to cook them. Our evening mealtime got earlier and earlier.

She soon made tea at 4pm. Every day.

By eight o’clock, we were starving again, growing children had hollow legs, remember. Mammy warned us to check that the gas was turned off after Granny had made the meals.

Granny would leave lights on, not put the guard in front of the fire and a time or two burnt her self on the gas stove.

My uncles and aunt noticed changes too when they visited. So it was decided for her safety that she should not stay living on her own.

She was still lucid and agreed that living alone was no longer the ideal. Of all the families, ours was the one where she felt most comfortable, but she refused to move in with us saying she would not be able to hold off interfering if we children were being chastised, so a residential home a short bus run away from us was selected.

Thus ended her fourteen year stay at number 92.

Granny lived in the home for about seven years, my brothers took it in turns to visit her each school day on their way home. The would check if she needed the evening paper, if so, one of them would go and buy it for her. I would go to see her in the evenings, my school was in a different direction.

In the early days she was able to go out alone and often hopped on a bus to our house. she would stay until after the evening meal and daddy would drive her back. One of us always went with him to take her back to her room, hang up her coat and make sure she was comfortable.

Slowly she deteriorated, her bag would be hidden in case somebody stole it. One day mammy walked across the room to open the window and outside on the window ledge, two floors up, was a bundle of bank notes rolled and tied with a rubber band.

Mammy lifted the bundle in and asked Granny why it was out on the ledge. It was Granny’s pension she had collected it that morning and put it out there for safe keeping. From then on, with the agreement of her siblings, Mammy collected the pension, gave her some pocket money and paid for what ever was needed. One of my uncles already looked after the major finances.

We were on the slippery slope….

• Granny began to think I had been at school with her.
• She introduced daddy as her son and not her son in law.
• She never remembered having any previous visitors that day, even if we knew she had.
• She constantly longed for sausages, telling us she had not had one for years.

Then there was the man.

She would point to the bottom of her bed and tell you about the man there. “He was no trouble. Very quiet. See those children? He is very good to them. He never laid a finger on them!”

She slowly sank away from us. On a good day we could steer her back to happy times and her eyes would light up for a few minutes.

Several times she became ill and we thought it was the end, but she rallied, never quite reaching the same step on the ladder of life.

She finally had a turn, but we had seen this so many times before, the staff were wonderful. Mammy, daddy and I were with her when she died.

That evening, at the dinner table daddy suggested we go en famille to say our goodbyes, so when the meal was over we drove back to the home. We gathered around the bed and daddy let us in prayer. Suddenly one of my younger brothers began to laugh heartily. Daddy stood up to his full height and asked for an explanation. My brother told him that Granny was always playing dead with us, and any minute now she would sit up and say: “Ha Ha. I fooled you all!”

We all began to laugh, Mammy and daddy included. It was how Granny would have wanted us to see her off: With laughter.

That was 12th July 1968.

We still talk about her and recall the laughter.
We loved the bones of her. Back then we never heard of dementia or Alzheimer’s, we just saw her as getting old, frail and her mind closing down. We laughed with her and never at her. We loved her.

RIP Granny (1884 – 1968).

I was dumped!

Bag and baggage.

Yes, last Saturday morning I was put into nursing care.

Matron was at the door, chart in hand, to take delivery of me. She asked more questions than the Leader of the opposition does during Prime Minister’s Question Time, in any house of Government!

She even asked me about my movements. NO! Not those movements, they stopped asking that question in hospitals and places of care, many a long year ago!

I have a room over looking the gardens and the other residents are friendly and very keen to interact and involve me in their activities right throughout the day.

There are regular supervised outings – Someone has to drive as I am still banned by that Nurse Hitler wan in the other place!

The meals are plentiful and nutritious and I am encouraged to play my part in the kitchen…… Some of the ingredients were a little strange to me:

Garlic Spider

Yesterday, we gathered some tomatoes and Matron decided to set me a task of doing something with them… chutney perhaps?

Now this is where I could have fun and get my own back for all this play acting at nursing homes etc. You see, I am now ensconced with my sister for a few days. Before retirement she had a career in the world of nursing.

Now back to the chutney.

We had tomatoes from the garden, home grown onions and some large cooking apples for a start and what ever was in the store cupboard. Every house I go into, the spice stash is different, so the fun begins in trying to find the right mix to suit the palate of the kitchen owner.

Out came mammy’s old soup pot and with it her spirit seemed to invade the room. We giggled and laughed right through the process of preparing & making the chutney. There were many reminders of mammy as we chided each other to mind our fingers, while chopping the onions and the apples, through tear filled eyes of laughter. The tomatoes were put in the oven to roast.

Then began the fun part….. “Will we add a bit of this?” or “Do you have any of….?” and the occasional “Ah go on, don’t be stingy, put a good dollop of that in!”

Was it nice?

It was so good that last night we ladled it over rice for dinner. I’ll be sneaking some home to put on my sandwiches (instead of butter) and for my salads or cold cuts.

Now when I manage to get a few quiet minutes (if visitors ease off a little), I’ll sit and think of what all we put in the pot, then type up the recipe, hopefully for next week. In the meantime….. here comes lunch.

The Girls:

Leader of the Pack

Pinky

Pinky gets a cuddle from Matron!

The Girls

Click on any of the photos for a larger image

Why I was missing

Monday morning and I am still away from home. The glorious sunshine continues and at times the temperatures are way above my comfort zone. I think I was born on a bad day for thermostats… my body copes badly with extreme heat or cold.

My week began well with interesting activities right through to Wednesday night. I was due to move to Elly’s on Thursday and had arranged to meet up with one of my brothers for coffee or lunch.

Alas, I woke with a bug, and after a delayed start I thought I was well enough to keep to my plans…. thinking is one thing….

I set out to join the M50, motorway – a C-shaped ring around the north-eastern, northern, western and southern sides of the capital city, Dublin. I am no stranger to it and have been using it since it was completed in 2005. It is the gateway to reach many of my family and friends.

On Thursday I was headed for junction 13, sure it was a case of taking the slip road followed by a couple of turns and I would be there at my brother’s gate…. thirty minutes at most! Getting to junction 13 slip road was no problem. It was the beginning of a nightmare!

Before you ask, I do not use a GPS, I hate them. I prefer to look at a map, note the places I am going through and follow the road signs.

The area between Dundrum and Sandyford is now like a satellite town, buildings sprouting like weeds everywhere and no recognizable land marks to cling on to. The road signs were confusing. Very confusing. I was going round in circles, the day was getting hotter and my energy levels sinking faster than the air from a burst balloon. I pulled over.

I called my brother and he sorted me out, we had our coffee. I was poor company, but he told me it was the reason he always suggested meeting me on my turf or temporary place of abode, because unless you were actually living in the area, it was impossible to find.

I arrived back at Elly’s house mid afternoon and headed for bed. I slept most of the day and the next. By Saturday evening I was beginning to feel peckish and George tempted my taste buds with tasty morsels. It worked.

Yesterday I was well enough to join the Pratt family for George’s birthday (actual date 17th July) party/BBQ with fifteen people and ten dogs. it was fun! Well worth all the sleep of the previous days! More photos and details to follow.

Adventure time

By the time I get to Phoenix Dublin I’ll be roasted!

Never mind the flags, have the hugs ready!

I know these guys will be waiting for me!

Patrick Kavenagh

Brendan Behan

Oscar Fingal O’Flahertie Wills Wilde

I am sure there will be a few warm blooded Toyboys too!

My Sleeping Partner

I came too slowly, realising that I was not alone in the bed. Mmmm… It has been a long time since I awoke to having my face stroked. I opened my eyes and there he was scurrying away from me, surely I don’t look that bad when I first wake in the morning?

Now wait a minute, you don’t fondle me in my own bed and then make a run for it. I want evidence!
Where is the camera when you need it? Right young man, come out from your hiding place and face the music. Got you, a real beauty!

Do you think I should tell my daughter?

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